Terry Sloan EPCC, The University of Edinburgh t.sloan@epcc.ed.ac.uk

1. INWA : using OGSA-DAI between the UK, Australia and China Terry Sloan EPCC, The University of Edinburgh t.sloan@epcc.ed.ac.uk

2. Overview • The Grid vision • The INWA project • Experiences from data mining over the grid OGSA-DAI • Typical scenario • Barriers • Future Plans

3. The Grid Vision “… flexible, secure, coordinated resource sharing among dynamic collections of individuals, institutions and resources - what we refer to as virtual organisations.” The Anatomy of the Grid: Enabling Scalable Virtual Organizations. I. Foster, C. Kesselman, S. Tuecke.International J. Supercomputer Applications, 15(3), 2001.

4. The INWA Project

5. The INWA virtual organisation

6. Resources UK mortgage data UK property data Australian telco data Australian property data Compute power at EPCC Compute power at Curtin Individuals and Organisations: Analyst at EPCC, UK Analyst at Curtin, Australia EPCC, UK – compute resource provider and host Curtin, Australia – compute resource host Sun Microsystems, Aus – compute resource provider Bank, UK – data provider ESPC, UK – data provider Telco, Aus – data provider VGO, WA, Aus – data provider INWA Resources & Participants

7. Background • Funded by UK Economic & Social Research Council (UK) in the Pilot Projects in E-Social Science • Small scale projects to explore the potential of Grid technologies within the social sciences • Informing Business & Regional Policy: Grid enabled fusion of global data & local knowledge • INWA : Innovation Node Western Australia • Started November 2003 • Initial phase finished August 2004

8. Project Aims • Evaluate the suitability of existing grid solutions for secure distributed data mining and analysis on commercially sensitive data • Investigate the advantages of fusing public and private data enabled by a grid environment

9. Barriers to Success • Can existing grid technologies fulfill this vision? • Transfer-queue Over Globus (TOG) v1.1 from the UK e-Science Sun Data and Compute Grids project • provides access to remote HPC resource • Open Grid Services Architecture – Data Access and Integration (OGSA-DAI) Release 3.1 • provides access control and discovery of distributed heterogeneous data resources • First Data Investigation on the Grid (FirstDIG) • grid data service browser provides SQL access to OGSA-DAI enabled resources • now part of OGSA-DAI R4.0 • Globus Toolkit 2 and 3 • Grid middleware • If not what are the barriers? • Technology? • Socio-economic?

10. TOG EPCC,UK user@perth OGSA-DAI OGSA-DAI Bank data UK Property Grid Engine Grid Engine TOG Curtin,Australia Bank Bank Telco Telco user@edinburgh OGSA-DAI OGSA-DAI Telco data Australian property Data Browser Data Browser The INWA Grid

11. Data Mining over the Grid

12. Data mining • A typical data mining project broadly involves • Getting the data • Cleaning it • Mining it • Iteration through steps 1 to 3 to refine models • So where can the Grid help?

13. Getting the data • Traditionally a file export • But OGSA-DAI is available • Open Grid Services Architecture : Data Access and Integration • Assists with the access and integration of data from separate data sources via the Grid • But organisations will not contemplate external access to operational/sensitive data • So back to a file export • UK Land registry • Public data source but no OGSA-DAI interface • Appropriate mechanisms need to be in place before data sharing can take place • So simulated this access over the Grid • But some security issues

14. Data Fusion • Fusing commercial data with public property data

15. Data Fusion • Why do it ? • Prospect of better models/predictions • Added value • But • need a distributed-aggregated approach to preserve anonymity • So simulated this over the Grid • Using a less specific join key • Not a 1-1 join but a 1-n so averaging necessary • Limited the potential gains from fusion • Fuzzy joins • e.g. postcode formats, addresses (St=Street, flat numbers)

16. Data Fusion tool support • Little real support for data integration over the Grid • OGSA-DQP (Distributed Query Processing) is limited • Needs Linux and so is restrictive • Uses OQL which similar to SQL but not as common • Complicated set-up • Dependent on a number of nodes being available to provide services • Used FirstDIG browser • Relevant data pulled over • Data joined locally • This works but obviously is not ideal • A lot of user interaction is required. • 7 queries are necessary to join two datasets • So again limited success over the Grid

17. Grid Computation • Large data sets so, … • Cleaning and mining jobs sent to where data is resident (UK and Australia) • Globus Toolkit V2.x (GT2), Grid Engine and TOG used • But… • Installation issues with GT2 • Not out-of-the-box, requires significant time, effort, expertise • Security issues with GT2 & TOG • Bug in the Globus Java CoG Kit • Security flag omission in TOG • All now works and is currently being used between UK and Australia

18. TOG/GridEngine/Globus set-up

19. Typical scenario

20. Demonstration • Scenario • A bank wants to predict if home owners are likely to move house within 5 years of taking out a loan to buy the house • This type of loan is a mortgage • Bank wants to use its own data and publically available data to help improve the prediction • Demo uses dummy data • Data stored in Australia in OGSA-DAI enabled databases • Demo shows an example of a workflow used in the project to browse and analyse data • FirstDIG browser and OGSA-DAI were used to browse and fuse data

21. Access OGSA-DAI Registry • FirstDIG browser started • OGSA-DAI registry at Curtin selected • Data sources available

22. Browse demo bank data • Grid data service factories appear • demoBank GDSF selected • SQL query input • select * from demoBankData LIMIT 50 • Run select query • Query results appear • example bank data

23. Browse demo public data • Select demo public GDSF • Run select query • select * from demoPublicdata limit 50 • Query results appear • example public data

24. Demo Data fusion • Select Database Join activity • Load SQL for data fusion pattern

25. Demo Data fusion 2 • Configure join pattern • Select source databases • Join on postcode • Set destination database

26. Data fusion results

27. Barriers encountered

28. Barriers • Trust • Dynamic, virtual organisation is simulated rather than created • Organisations understandably wary about installation of software and the access it provides • Market • Not clear if data providers will publish data via web/grid service interfaces such as OGSA-DAI • Security, Security, Security • Not mature enough • Bugs found in all major software used: Globus, OGSA-DAI and TOG • Software • Not robust enough • OGSA-DAI V3.1 could not handle large results • Sys admin skills still necessary to maintain the grid

29. Lessons Learned • Performing Data Integration: • TimeZone date problems • Dates are stored as a time so • 6:00am Dec 25th in Perth Australia is converted to • 10:00pm Dec 24th in Edinburgh, UK • If data is processed in the UK, the wrong date is used. • Security issues: • As mentioned before Bugs in • Globus JavaCoG in GT3 • OGSA-DAI could not switch security for Grid data transfers • TOG had no security option • All of these have been fixed • Middleware not mature enough for commercial deployment • Not out-of-the box • Bug fixes were required • Scalability- difficulty with large results in OGSA-DAI V3.1 • Fixed in OGSA-DAI V4.0

30. Conclusions

31. Conclusions • Simulation explored the potential of a virtual organisation consisting of data providers and analytical scientists • Grid-data fusion in global markets benefits from perceived strengths of the Grid in scope and (global) scale • For this application, grid technologies not mature enough to support the operation of a dynamic, virtual organisation • Do not provide necessary security and robustness to instill trust • Still needs to establish a business benefit that outweighs the cost of addressing the risks(?) • Project contacts • http://www.epcc.ed.ac.uk/inwa • inwa@epcc.ed.ac.uk

32. Future Plans

33. Future Plans • Include Chinese Academy of Sciences (CNIC) as node in the INWA grid infrastructure – ESRC/Sun funded • Upgrade from OGSA-DAI R3.1 to R4.0 • Addresses security and performance issues • Investigate ODBC connections to OGSA-DAI data services • ODBC typically available in the data analysis software used in business and social science research • …then we can start to explore the impact of Grid capabilities on innovation processes and hence the Grid’s potential to support (virtual) industry clusters